


We Are The Meta

by Churbooseanon



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 14:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1821580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's still there, under the surface, trapped by them. They are the Meta. He is Maine, and that distinction is really all he has left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Are The Meta

**Author's Note:**

> A request from beepony of Tumblr and a nod to an evening with harooks of the same.

Minutes. Days. Years. 

It's hard to tell time when it isn't your mind any more. 

Minutes. Days. Years.

Honestly, it could just as easily be any of those things. Minutes since Sigma had reached in and, with a dark laugh that rolled like oil over water, twisted just _so_ and suddenly he wasn't Maine anymore. No, _he_ was still Maine, this tiny fragment of a man, but _they_ weren't. He had been shunted off into a dark corner of his own mind while _they_ walked, talked, breathed, _lived._ Minutes since he had stopped and they had started. 

There are things he remembers that say it has to be more than that. Remembers the barber shaving his head bear. Remembers laying still as stone in the chair as hundreds upon hundreds of needle pricks moved from the base of his neck to the top of his head and made him want to scream with pain as Sigma marked him. _Tool_ etched indelibly on his skin, seared into him as a brand of ownership. 

It had to have been more than minutes. 

Days then. Days since Sigma had burned open the pathways of his mind and discarded him like a broken toy. Since the new voices added themselves to his head, two voices that were one and sang and sang and mourned a woman with crimson hair and vivid green eyes who would never be enough for her father.

But no, there are memories that don't agree with that either. It has to be more than that. Because he remembers Wyoming and Gamma—brother—fleeing. Remembers the ship crashing and flinging Carolina aside as if she didn't matter. Didn't matter to him, hadn't been his friend, his boss, his comrade for longer than most others. She was a survivor, he wanted to scream that at Sigma, but the one voice was three and it was even harder to stir from the corner they had left him. They didn't care, they were _together_ and nothing mattered more than that. He remembers running through the snow, going and going and going and how he laughed when his body collapsed from the strain that Sigma, _The Meta_ , had inflicted on it. Remembers the cursing, the riot of hatred, the agony as they forced him forward to feel it all for them. They didn't give him enough to control, just to take the pain. A shield to keep them from what they had done. 

Even he had limits, and they had pushed him far past them for the sake of their desires. 

It had to have been more than mere days. 

Years then. Years since Sigma had set his body aflame, made two burning men of them, and left his charred remains behind. Since then there had been so many new voices. He knew them, every last one. Knew Gamma's flat tones. Knew Omega's low growl. Knew Delta's cold calculation with something more behind it. Knew Theta's high, happy voice. Knew Beta, though he hadn't known her. 

There are memories that agree with that. Memories of searching. So much searching. Of being pushed far beyond his limits. Pain and driving force behind him. He's held ransom in his own head. He can barely even watch as he tears them apart. One by one they fall before him. Maybe some fell first, but he does it anyway. His body is a weapon, a tool, marked by Sigma and renamed in _their_ image. Some he doesn't know, doesn't remember. Throw away bodies that never made it among the real ranks. Others...

He remembers the way North drops the shields to draw him off. Sigma knows what North has. Has Theta, has the shield, the motion trackers, too tempting of a prospect. Next to him South is nothing. Half a second drop here and there, Theta's good at what he does, to try and keep attention on him. Doesn't know that South is already down. He holds out the longest. Maine remembers that. Remembers the scream, the mixture of Theta and North's voices as his fingers dig into North's neck and _yank_. Remembers the pathetic moans and pleas. Remembers how quickly Theta forgets, or maybe just discards. Remembers hunting Wash. Remembers South's deal. Remembers the others, the hunt, the near victory, remembers the strange soldier in blue. Remembers so much.

They ignore him, meld around him, and leave him broken in the corner. Except Beta. Except Tex. She was strong enough to hold separate, and she came to him. Lingered with him. Whispered to him. They didn't know where Alpha was. Wash was still out there. Have faith in him. 

That was the worst part. 

Minutes. Days. Years. 

He still remembers David. Remembers a young man in the middle of a battle he had no chance of winning. He can't remember why the Director wanted him, just that he did. Remembers watching the kid use his knife to disembowel an Elite, which is no small matter. Remembers how broken and bloody he had been and yet he had still been standing, still been fighting, the last member of his squad breathing. Remembers carrying him back and thinking this better be worth it. Remembers the way David felt in his arms, the press of their lips and their bodies and he refuses to remember it any more because he also remembers David on the ground, shot in the back by South, bleeding out.

It had taken everything, every last trick and bit of energy he had scrounged to push to the fore and hold the _thing_ he had become back, to keep them from the healing unit. There was nothing left when they found South and Delta and David had shown up. Nothing to stop him when David had tried to catch him. And catch him. And catch him. 

And finally did. 

He screamed, he fought, he tore with everything he had, with Beta, as he cornered Wash. That didn't stop them. No, in the end it had taken something larger than any of them had expected, and yet the very thing they wanted. 

Alpha was worse than any of the others. Each of the fragments burnt paths, channels through his mind for themselves. Together they created the Meta with those lines carved deep in his self. Alpha rode through them like a new inferno, burning them raw, overloading them and overwhelming everything. One by one the voices had melded into each other. 

It had taken years. No. Days. No. Minutes. No. It was instant and it hurt. 

There was no room for Maine. And even Tex, even Beta had gone, had reached toward him. Wove herself through the paths of his mind like she hadn't been trying to protect him. 

Even the pain, the anguish, the screaming needles of the EMP didn't free him. It solidified the bars of his mind, a firmer prison than any wrought by the AI fragments. 

It wasn't Maine who awoke in the aftermath. It was the Meta, whole and desperate to refill the channels of his mind. A creature built up from the paths they had carved, the will they had left. 

He gave up and surrendered himself to the dark corner of his mind, the emptiness that was all that was left to him. 

Minutes. Days. Not years. That much he's sure of. Wash is back too soon for that. Standing before him with hard looks and Meta doesn't react. Maine doesn't let himself reach for that, hope for something. He knows he can't move, can't breathe, can't _be_ with the Meta. Alpha had sealed him in tighter than any attempt of Sigma. 

He watches, though. Watches and waits and hopes that maybe there is something of _him_ in Meta because David doesn't deserve this. Deserves better than yet another betrayal, which he somehow doesn't see coming even though Maine wants to scream it at him. 

He sees it coming when they don't. All he has been able to do for years was observe and think and remember. It's a perfect trap because no Freelancer would dare to think that it would be one. His only regret is that Wash, that _David_ is going to be dragged into all of this. 

It takes half a minute for him to realize that the pain after the explosion is in _his_ head. Not Meta's, _his_. He pushes himself to his feet and sees it. Tex, standing over a bloody Wash with a weapon. 

No. 

Years. Days. Minutes. His heart beat. Maine throws himself forward for the first time since a twist and tug years ago—two life times ago—and tackles Tex. It's all he can do. The only way to save Wash. To protect the last of them. The only of them. The only thing he has left to care about. 

Maine throws himself willfully into the patterns scratched by the fragments, solidified by the Alpha, and danced by the Meta.

It wasn't him before. It has to be him now. 

He hates it, becoming the thing he has reviled for so long. 

It's all that left to him, though. The only way to save David. And he isn't the Meta, not _really_. He won't betray David. Won't. Can't. Wouldn't. 

Easy promises to make while he surges through the lines they cut into him and flows the bars of his prison. Hard to pull away from them while Tex is left in his reach. Impossible when she's in the unit and it's everything those pathways know and want and _need_. 

Epsilon-Tex flows into the pathways just as easily as he did. They channel her rage, her hatred. They meld together. They are one. 

_They are Meta._


End file.
